Notes from the Underground

Here at the halfway point of this year’s edition of the Chicago Underground Film Festival, I’m dizzy with excitement as I look back over the films that I’ve managed to see thus far.

A sizeable chunk of these have been documentaries, many of them inspirational in their championing of the outsiders in society, often shown pursuing their passions for little or no recognition or financial reward (many right here in Chicago, from the musicians who gleefully squonk their way through the crossed wires of Circuit Bending: A Toy Story to the artist who papers over El train advertisements with his tributes to NASA casualties in Our Fallen Spacemen).

One of the revelations of the festival, The Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback (previously discussed here by Lew), screens again tonight at 10:00. I had never even heard of these guys before, but the night after the screening I was enthusiastically bopping along to Monks’ guitarist-vocalist Gary Burger backed by The Goblins at the Empty Bottle as they performed such decades ahead-of-their-time Monk gems as “Complication” and “I Hate You (But Call Me).”

Having met and formed during an army stint in early-1960s Germany, the band stayed on after their term of service had ended and toured the country extensively. Gigs included the legendary Hamburg Beatles haunt The Top Ten Club (amusing given the band’s minimalist, avant-garde songs and appearance led many at the time to refer to them as the anti-Beatles), only returning to the States after the band’s breakup a few years later.

The band’s theme song, “Monk Time,” contained anti-Vietnam sentiment which was updated at the Empty Bottle to include the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Naturally, voices of dissent and questioning have been heard in many of the films screened thus far, although opening night selection Nice Bombs (also previously mentioned here by Lew) made a point to try to focus on the everyday life-during-wartime Iraq over explicit commentary, which made for an equally compelling indictment of the current state of affairs.

Freedom of speech is one of the main issues at the heart of the story of Tucson low-wattage “pirate” broadcasters in Making Waves, several insisting that the first amendment gives them the right to the airwaves, they don’t need no stinkin’ FCC licenses! Once again the political leanings of the interviewees are played down in favor of their own personalities, although in any case labeling some of them would be a tough assignment (the “so-far-right-they’re-left” syndrome and vice-versa).

I’d love to write more, but I’ve got to head out to the next screening!

-Dan Mucha